Uganda’s State Violence Has Become Normalized
In 2018, during protests in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, I arrived at the spot where a man had been shot to death just an hour before. Locals showed me pictures of his bloodstained body; the police would later say he was killed by a “stray bullet.” But it already looked as though nothing had happened at all. Boda boda drivers leaned on their motorcycles. Women bent over charcoal stoves. Young men gathered around Ludo boards, slapping down pieces with a familiar clack.
State violence has become normalized in Uganda’s capital. On Nov. 18, 2020, opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, known as Bobi Wine, was arrested in the country’s eastern district of Luuka for violating COVID-19 rules while campaigning for the presidency against incumbent President Yoweri Museveni. In the ensuing unrest, with nationwide protests, police and soldiers killed at least 54 people—many of whom weren’t even
